Lorenzo’s Reviews > Le Deuxième Sexe > Status Update

Tu n'es plus tout à moi. Ta tête
Réfléchit déjà d'autres cieux.
Il est né, j'ai perdu mon jeune bien-aimé
Maintenant il est né, je suis seule, je sens
S'épouvanter en moi le vide de mon sang

(Cécile Sauvage)

The first volume concludes with a bright opening. After chasing the 'absolute other' in myths and conceptions on women, Beauvoir ultimately considers the woman self as a reciprocal conscience, struggling to define and understand men's interior life. Only circumstances made her prudent, sometimes even a comedian trying to resist the nonsense of social positions imposed on by a culture often man-dominated.

Astonished in reading how Beauvoir tries to find in any aspect of the everyday of a woman (parfumes, makeup, wigs) a sign of Beauvoir's mantras (the woman as a medium to the Nature, the men's need for transcendance, the concepts on women's body as a consequence of dominant social theories). Not entirely sure if her analysis overcharges the spontaneity of a simple act of life with cumbersome preset theories